Take the game Bastion for example, the music is gorgeous, the naration is to die for, the game play is fun and the story is fantastic. They all play their partDioWallachia said:
Is videogame music is enough to hold an ENTIRE game?
- Thread starter DioWallachia
- Start date
Recommended Videos
By that logic so is every seri- y'know what, I have found it surprisingly easy to ignore the freaks as long as you ignore nearly everything to do with the fanbase. Even the good. Cos there aint much hahaxplosive59 said:
A game needs music for the tone. I don't know what it is but music reinforces the tone better than any other thing (maybe art, but most games don't have an art shift). I was just playing Resident Evil 4 to some happy j-pop music there was a bit of a tone conflict there.
Maybe not carry the entire game, but it can certainly enough to make the game better, if anyone ever heard The Neverhood soundtrack, they'd know the music and how it was so /unique.
Music can also break the game, say an event happens and the music changes sharply, can't think of a game off the top of my head but it basically says 'Shit's about to happen.'
Music can also break the game, say an event happens and the music changes sharply, can't think of a game off the top of my head but it basically says 'Shit's about to happen.'
You see? that is kinda the thing i am trying to get my head around. Maybe all the games one thought they were great they fall flat as soon the music is gone, when in reality, it should have been a whole sum of all its part what SHOULD have made it great.TehCookie said:
People in this thread find it impossible but the few comments like your make me believe that there is something into it that they may be missing.
It is a sum of parts that makes a game good and music is one of those parts. It's like taking the story out of a game and asking if it's good. It can be but it's not as good as it was with a story (though I'm not sure if that answers your question, you may want to double check your grammar). Though I already beat RE4 so I wasn't playing it for the full experience, I just wanted to play as Leon and shoot someDioWallachia said:
Nope, not at all. If Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing had a soundtrack equivalent to Mario Galaxy's, Metal Gear Solid's or Halo's (to name a few) soundtrack it would still suck major balls because it's Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.
Music and writing are two of the most under-rated parts of a game.
Which is why you only ever see coding and art related jobs (plus community and what-not) advertised for games (except for Bioware, but they have outrageous experience requirements, quite funny given how poor a lot of their writing has been of late.)
Which is why you only ever see coding and art related jobs (plus community and what-not) advertised for games (except for Bioware, but they have outrageous experience requirements, quite funny given how poor a lot of their writing has been of late.)
For me, music is more of a multiplyer of game quality. So, if game quality is zero, it's still gonna be zero, even if you multiply it by 2 or 3.
I don't need music to tell me how to feel aboout a given situation, and I love the Poacher/ Half life 2 method of not playing music until a crowning moment of awesome/heartwarming/ambience happens. If it's an older style arcade or some such, I do expect a stant soundtrack that changes every now and again, unless the moment is particularly dramatic (In which case shutting off the music can work pretty damn well)
I actually emailed Yahtzee suggesting he do an Extra Punctuation feature on this.
But speaking as someone who loves gaming soundtracks more than current day music, I have to say no. A good soundtrack alone can't carry a bad game. Even the worst of the Megaman series had amazing music but weren't any less awful for it. If the song is good enough you won't even want to play the level, and then what's the point of having a game when you can just buy the album?
One very atmospheric soundtrack I felt was underrated was the first two Turok games, complimenting a pair of pretty good FPSes. Definitely gets you in a feeling of danger and ready to kill some dinosaurs/undead/aliens/eldritch abominations:
But speaking as someone who loves gaming soundtracks more than current day music, I have to say no. A good soundtrack alone can't carry a bad game. Even the worst of the Megaman series had amazing music but weren't any less awful for it. If the song is good enough you won't even want to play the level, and then what's the point of having a game when you can just buy the album?
One very atmospheric soundtrack I felt was underrated was the first two Turok games, complimenting a pair of pretty good FPSes. Definitely gets you in a feeling of danger and ready to kill some dinosaurs/undead/aliens/eldritch abominations:
Do you think that the movie directors of this day an age actually think enough about their music (ala John Carpenter) to give the necessary effect? or they are hacks like Michael Bay and just put a music that rips off something popular in that moment in time? (like the soundtrack of Inception)BeeGeenie said:
How many of them do you hear talking about the importance of music?
I did told him about how jarring is the soundtrack of the game when all its quiet and then ROCK starts to play for the bosses.WhiteFangofWar said:
Still, for the few post i found here, it seems that there are cases where the game just FAILS without it and, again, this makes me question how many games were just plain "meh" without the soundtrack to back it up.
EDIT: Added a Red Letter Media video on the OP for the people who still dont get my point
